Consulting Matters June 2020

WINTER 2020

Resilience

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Rethinking resiliency for port operations

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How resilient is your management of risk?

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Building resilience in tough times

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CONTENTS

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Rethinking resiliency for port operations Industry updates Industry updates

Delivering beyond the Pavement Rethinking resiliency for port operations 24

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What’s happening in Consult Australia

Delivering beyond the Pavement

Community resilience – the dynamic duo of physical and social infrastructure 27 Safeguarding the UN Sustainable Development Goals with Resilience

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From the President

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From the CEO

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The Impact of Covid-19 on Modern Slavery. Is there an opportunity for positive impact?

State & Terriroty Updates

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Resilience in the face of Rising Waters

Supporting your success – 2020 Activities and Achievements Half-yearly snapshot

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Business essentials Could less PI insurance be a force for good?

Features The AEC sector’s digital breakthrough is closer than you think

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Building resilience in tough times

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The sobering lessons for climate change 16 How resilient is your management of risk?

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Cbus paves a role in Australia’s economic recovery

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Ten keys to increasing organisational resilience 23

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To find out more about how your firm can benefit from membership contact Consult Australia on (02) 8252 6700 or email membership@consultaustralia.com.au

Corporate Social Responsibility Standing together to build resilience in a post-COVID world

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Project case studies Flood Resilience in action

Not a member of Consult Australia?

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www.consultaustralia.com.au

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Consulting Matters

Industry updates

Industry updates APPOINTMENTS Australian Constructors Association (ACA) has appointed Jon Davies as it’s first CEO. Jon’s track record in the industry in Queensland and his recent leadership success as CEO of the Queensland Major Contractors Association will enable him to lead the ACA, ensuring a sustainable industry that delivers for its clients and communities.

Julie Stanley has joined Calibre as Executive General Manager – Professional Services for Calibre's Built Environment, Water, Transport, Mining and Technologies businesses in Australia. Julie brings a wealth of international experience in leading successful business outcomes in market and executive level roles across engineering and major infrastructure service sectors.

Mick Richardson has been appointed General Manager for Beca’s Australian Defence and National Security business. With an accomplished 31-year background as a Marine Engineer Officer with the Royal Australian Navy, Beca look forward to his expertise helping grow their Defence and National Security team.

Stantec has appointed Scott Nield as General Manager Transportation for Australia. Scott’s career spans 22 years across water and wastewater treatment, flood and coastal defence, dams, transportation, mining, and oil and gas. He combines a technical background in civil engineering with expert knowledge of project management and leadership.

Brent Crockford is the newly appointed (inaugural) Chief Executive Officer of Australian Owned Contractors. AOC represents 15 Australian owned and controlled mid-tier constructors across Australia, with a single focus on encouraging Governments and their procurement agencies to break down large (civil) infrastructure contracts so that AOC members can bid for them.

Phil Card has been appointed General Manager of Beca’s Industrial business, a role he balances with his responsibilities as Regional Manager of Beca’s Victorian office (since September 2019). Phil joined Beca as a graduate engineer in 1998 and has since established a solid career in their Australian Industrial team.

Andrew Atkinson has been appointed Client Development Director for Australia and New Zealand at Stantec.

He’ll oversee key sales and relationship management by utilising his specialist skills executing client strategies and key campaigns, gained from over fifteen years working across the digital media and infrastructure industries.

Paul Brown joins Beca as Technical Director of their Australian Buildings team. He brings over 30 years’ experience in delivering complex, multi-disciplinary buildings projects across South Africa, the Middle East and Australia – including Freshwater Place, Melbourne Square, 567 Collins Street, Calatrava Tower Dubai and QNB Tower Doha.

International engineering and infrastructure advisory company Aurecon has appointed Nathan Roberts as its Newcastle Leader to lead its Newcastle team in delivering innovative infrastructure design concepts and engineering advice for the key city-shaping and urban renewal projects that are helping to define Greater Newcastle and its future.

Industry updates

Consulting Matters

OBITUARY – PETER HEIN Peter graduated in 1954 from Melbourne University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He joined W. E. Bassett and Associates in December 1954, and apart from two years working overseas, spent his entire career there, ultimately as Chairman of Bassett Consulting Engineers. In Montreal Canada, he worked for consulting engineer, Wiggs Walford Frost & Lindsay and later in New York he worked for contractor Wolf and Munier.

In 1959 Peter returned to Melbourne and spent two years there, working on engineering services for buildings and industrial facilities in Australia and overseas.

In 1962 he was transferred to Perth, Western Australia to open the Bassett’s office.

While in Perth, he was involved in the design documentation and construction of several major projects, including Council House and a major development for the Australian Navy. His longstanding involvement with the ACEA (Association of Consulting Engineers Australia, now Consult Australia) commenced in 1962 and he greatly valued the opportunities he was given. Peter was made an associate of the firm in 1962 and was invited to join the partnership in 1967.

Editor Mark Rock

President Gerry Doyle

Chief Executive Officer Nicola Grayson

Finance Manager Penny Clark

Executive Assistant to CEO Karen Pooley

Accounts Guillaume Marchand

When he moved to Sydney in 1975 Peter was elected as Honorary Treasurer of ACEA. He served as President from 1982 to 1984 and became a Life Member in 1992.

James Robertson

Peter, and a team from Bassett’s, were involved in the design of the mechanical services for the new Parliament House in Canberra which opened in 1988.

Kristy Eulenstein

In addition to this work he was a member of the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) Executive Committee from 1988 to 1992. He had a long involvement in liability and professional indemnity insurance matters and served on the Liability Committee of the Institution of Engineers, Australia.

After his retirement from practice, he served for some time as Honorary Professor in the Department of Architectural and Design Science at the University of Sydney.

Peter was a keen yachtsman, classical music lover and an avid reader, particularly of military history. He died in March after a long illness.

Policy Advisor Policy Advisor Marketing Manager Mark Rock

Database Manager Michelle O'Neill

Corporate Designer Voltaire Corpuz

State & Territory Managers SA/NT Manager Jan Irvine

NSW Manager Linda Gaunt

VIC & TAS Manager Kathy Uhlik

ACT Manager Caitlin Buttress

QLD Manager David Shillington

WA Manager Diane Dowdell

Editorial submissions mark@consultaustralia.com.au

Advertising enquiries info@consultaustralia.com.au Consulting Matters is produced by Consult Australia Phone: (02) 8252 6700 Website: www.consultaustralia.com.au

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Consulting Matters

What’s happening at Consult Australia

From the President Courage is the ability to do something in the face of fear. If you don’t fear it, then you don’t need any courage to tackle it. Just as there is no fitness without training, there is no resilience without courage.

This edition of Consulting Matters focuses on the theme of resilience. Resilience is defined as the ability to recover quickly from difficulties. This topic is particularly timely, given we are all navigating a multitude of difficulties and uncertainties right now.

COVID-19 has created a radically different environment across the globe, our country, our businesses, our families, and all aspects of our lives. Some nations, businesses, and people seem to be able to bounce back from whatever life – and the current pandemic – throws at them, while others appear to be beaten down and unable to get up.

It all comes down to resilience. Yet, what makes one person more resilient than another?

The American Psychological Association states that “Like a muscle, increasing your resilience takes time and intentionality.

Focusing on four core components – connection, wellness, healthy thinking and meaning – can empower you to withstand and learn from difficult and traumatic experiences.”

I am not great at being resilient, or at least I don’t think I am. At the moment, it is hard to get up in the morning and face what life is throwing at me. Earlier today I talked

to my coach and friend about how I was feeling worn down. She reminded me that it takes courage to get out of bed and face the challenges. It takes courage to walk into the meeting that you desperately want to avoid. It takes courage to go on and to be the person that you want to be.

matters to you. Be resilient too, because being courageous is never easy. As you face that which scares you most, you are building an important muscle.

It is only by getting back up when we are knocked down that we can build the courage and resilience we need to make things better.

Courage is the ability to do something in the face of fear. If you don’t fear it, then you don’t need any courage to tackle it. Just as there is no fitness without training, there is no resilience without courage.

While we all want to recover as soon as possible, now more than ever we need people to be courageous. Our society needs people of character to be standing up for those that can’t and making the necessary changes so that everyone can have a positive future.

Where do we start? At Consult Australia we are starting by tackling the issues of making sure that our industry has a pipeline for the future and that we are treated fairly in how we contract. We are starting with Government, who we are calling on to lead our nation courageously.

As individuals, each of us has things we are passionate about. I encourage you to be a person of courage and stand for what

Gerry Doyle President

What’s happening at Consult Australia

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From the CEO How courageous we are going to be in following through resilience learnings at a macro-level is going to be the defining moment for our generation. Not surprisingly therefore, this is explored across a number of articles in this edition.

Building resilience has been a theme that organisations, governments, and institutions have been exploring for some time and when we set the themes for our 2020 Consulting Matters, at the end of last year, it was an obvious topic to include as there is still much to uncover and learn. We all knew disruption was coming in some form and in the main discussions have been focused on technology and the environment. Some of you may have been anticipating disruption from a pandemic/epidemic in some form, given our contemporary experience of AIDS, Swine Flu, Ebola, and Zika, but few would have predicted the true extent of the disruption we are experiencing.

Here we find ourselves in real time disruption with the ability to record and assess our resilience in response to the initial shock and then how we respond moving through it. This gives us an incredible opportunity to learn and adapt so that we can change and grow. Peter de Bruin (BG&E) picks this up in his article on organisational resilience, noting that flexible organisations respond to change by growing and learning to use change as a driver for innovation and competitive advantage.

Professor Danny Samson reminds us that resilience is ultimately a function of an organisation’s culture and employees’ behaviours too. The shift to home-based working is one such change that has given us great insights into organisational culture and has busted the productivity loss myth for many leaders. Matthew East and Tristan Anderson (GHD) lead us through contingency planning, looking at ports as a case study, via the port in Felixstowe (coincidentally in my home county of Suffolk in the UK).

How courageous we are going to be in following through resilience learnings at a macro-level is going to be the defining moment for our generation. Not surprisingly

therefore, this is explored across a number of articles in this edition. Kaitlin Shilling (Arup) makes the link between resilience and furthering the UNs Sustainable Development Goals. Paul Gleeson (Aurecon) sees our response to COVID-19 being linked to the immediacy of the threat versus our response to climate change measured in 1.5 or 2°C of warming over decades. Dr Martin Budd and Adrian Turnbull (Royal HaskoningDHV) challenges our thinking in the face of sealevel rise and Digby Hall (Northrop Consulting Engineers) proposes solutions including undergrounding powerlines, mixed use zoning, and community governance.

Consult Australia members are well placed to guide and lead our decision-makers and communities through these challenges.

To do that we need to make sure that we have a healthy and sustainable industry and marketplace in which to operate.

Digitalisation is going to be an essential element and Rachael Bernstone (Deltek) points us to a roadmap for success in her article. Better procurement and contracting conditions have long been, and remain, critical to a healthy marketplace in which to operate and Kiri Parr (Kiri Parr, Ltd and immediate past Consult Australia President) highlights the pressure in the Professional Indemnity Insurance market and what this means in an environment where too often risk is considered cheaply and easily transferred.

Measuring the impact of COVID-19 impact across the membership has been a sobering exercise, with the results of our Industry Health Check showing that two thirds of respondents are experiencing a reduction in work with ninety-eight percent reporting that this is due to a drop in privately funded projects. It is heartening to read Cbus’ article that through Cbus Property they are supporting economic recovery, funding not just large-scale property projects, but small

to medium tier projects. They are also looking at opportunities that provide funding for social and affordable housing.

As you’ll read, the team here at Consult Australia continues to engage with governments across the country to highlight how our members, large, medium, and small, will make a critical contribution to the country’s economic recovery and building our country’s resilience for years to come.

Nicola Grayson CEO

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What’s happening at Consult Australia

State & Territory Updates With varying market conditions around the country Consult Australia’s state and territory managers share their insights on key challenges and opportunities for our member firms.

VIC & TAS Kathy Uhlik

COVID-19 has remained the focus of many meetings and continuing conversations with a variety of agencies, including the Department of Treasury and Finance and the Property Council Victoria. The emphasis on ensuring a strong pipeline of work remains unchanged, and we continue to stress the importance of allowing time for a thorough and collaborative design process to ensure “shovel ready” projects succeed.

Earlier in June, members of the Victorian Committee met with the Deputy Secretary, Commercial Division, and Executive Director, Infrastructure Policy and Assurance from the Department of Treasury and Finance (DTF), to discuss ways in which DTF can make efficiencies to their tender processes. Key points from the discussion were: the recognition of the need to standardise contracts; ensure proportionate risk is taken by all parties to an agreement; the need to work collaboratively together (government agency/contractor/ consultant/etc) to ensure the best outcomes for the project and broader community; discussion of the term “fit for purpose” in consultant agreements; the causes and effects that changes to bids and packages have to all concerned parties; and the significant savings a project can make by investing wisely, both funding and collaboration, in the early design stages. We will continue this dialogue with DTF on a regular basis moving forward.

The Victorian Committee Chair and I met with the Property Council’s Victorian Executive Director and Policy and Research Officer. During our meeting, we discussed the current state of the sector, the value of consultants to the building industry and explored ways in which we could potentially collaborate in the future. We also discussed the mutual needs and benefits of implementing standardised contracting.

Building Victoria’s Recovery (BVR) Taskforce has been established and we met with the Department of Land, Water and Planning to discuss their priorities. The BVR has been established for a threemonth period and has three key focus areas. The first is to fast-track “shovel ready” projects which are already in the planning system and are of greatest benefit to the community, both major city and regional. The second area is around finding stimulus areas i.e. where are the greatest opportunities, what can be changed to stimulate growth. The third area is looking at longer-term planning reform i.e. lessons learnt from the pandemic and how processes can be improved and streamlined.

Improved and streamlined planning processes have also been introduced for the Bushfire Recovery Victoria (BRV) Program, enabling those affected by the recent bushfires to more easily rebuild their homes and businesses. BRV will ensure current bushfire building standards are met by continuing to work closely with communities, councils and consultants.

In late May, the Minister for Water announced $48 million in water projects throughout Victoria. These projects will aid the bushfire

recovery process and help protect the environment by modernising irrigation and utilising stormwater and recycling technologies to secure water supplies. We are currently discussing potential opportunities to work with water authorities to allow consultants a greater understanding of their requirements to help fulfil these projects.

We met with the Department of State Growth, Tasmania, to discuss the current situation with COVID-19 and how they are planning to adjust. A new consultancy panel is being introduced, which will provide greater scope and opportunities for consulting firms. iTas is assessing infrastructure more broadly to identify opportunities to stimulate growth, and there is also a focus on accelerating some of the design work to ensure it’s meeting new and current needs. Public housing in Tasmania is at historic high levels however there is still room for expansion. Ensuring design work is available, particularly for SMEs, is an area of focus as the Government is conscious of constructors’ work continuing and the need to for design to enable future projects.

Suburban Rail Loop Authority CEO, Nick Foa, presented a highly informative online event, sharing with attendees the progress made over the past six months of the project. It’s clear that community considerations have been at the forefront of the project planning, however COVID-19 has created a challenge ensuring ongoing and accessible engagement with the community. Project packages are also being assessed, with risk allocation, size and diversity of packages etc all having a significant impact on procurement planning.

We were also fortunate enough to run a Mental Health Masterclass, with Kim Seeling Smith, on Mind Matters - 5 steps to staying emotionally fit, motivated and productive during social distancing.

This valuable session looked at how roles and goals can change during this time of significant change, and practical ways to manage your mental health.

The world of Professional Indemnity Insurance truly is a minefield, so the opportunity to have Simon Gray, from Planned Cover, and Greg Skehan, from Colin Biggers & Paisley, run an online event to explain some of the pitfalls, tips, and current state of the market was invaluable.

For any division queries, contact Kathy on kathy@consultaustralia.com.au Please see the website for more details and to register for upcoming events, here.

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ACT

Jan Irvine Congratulations to Caitlin Buttress, our ACT Manager, on the birth of her second child, a happy and healthy baby girl. Caitlin is on parental leave until the new Year, with Jan Irvine providing support to the ACT in the interim.

The last quarter has been the most disrupted that the industry and world at large have seen for many years. While we navigate the unchartered waters and challenges of a pandemic, Consult Australia has been committed to continue advocating on behalf of the industry to ensure that business can run as close to usual as possible, while maintaining a focus on our usual policy platforms of people, pipeline, procurement and practice.

The ACT Division has been meeting with representatives from the ACT Government and industry counterparts via video-conference on a regular basis as part of an ACT Infrastructure Sector group since late March to address ongoing challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. The group is led by Chief Projects Officer from Major Projects Canberra, Duncan Edghill, and attended regularly by other relevant agencies such as the Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate (EPSDD), Transport Canberra and City Services (TCCS), Suburban Land Agency (SLA), the Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate (CMTEDD), Worksafe ACT, the Community Services Directorate (CSD), as well as utilities provides Icon Water. Topics of discussion have included; worksite health and safety, border closures, economic stimulus, market capacity, learnings from other jurisdictions (including NZ), material and PPE availability, infrastructure pipeline and types of projects to be advanced, planning approval, definition of ‘essential services’, economic stimulus, market capacity, and of course, contract management.

We have achieved a number of wins by attending this regular forum, the first of which is having a seat at the table at such a valuable forum, and forming strong relationships with government and sector representatives. Consult Australia has provided feedback regarding the ongoing release of ACT government projects and the importance of management of delays in contracts, such as force majeure clauses. Many of these points have been observed and the ACT Government formed a Contracts Working Group to ensure that the industry is not unfairly affected by the pandemic’s impacts. The Working Group is reporting back regularly and seeking feedback.

The ACT Chief Minister has also heeded advice from the group by sending out correspondence to the industry regarding ongoing procurement and the advancement of the ACT Government project pipeline, as well as a new regular ‘COVID-19 Industry Update’.

Consult Australia has continued to advocate for a strong and clear pipeline of work to be announced by the ACT Government and has also raised the consulting industry’s ability to support the government with client-side project management. The idea was positively received, and the ACT Chief Engineer is following up with

Consult Australia ACT members on how this can be achieved.

On 23 April, the ACT government announced the fast-tracking of additional infrastructure projects as part of their economic stimulus to keep Canberra working through the COVID-19 pandemic. The program focuses on work that can start immediately and will support local jobs, businesses and our Canberra community. The projects include infrastructure and maintenance work on government-owned community buildings, schools and other facilities.

The draft of the Labour Hire Licensing Bill 2020 was introduced to the ACT Legislative Assembly on 20 February. After reviewing the drafting, Consult Australia wrote to the office of Suzanne Orr MLA, Minister for Government Services and Procurement to outline some concerns with the Bill, including some unintended consequences flowing from the broad drafting, and some recommendations to clarify and rectify the issues. The Minister’s office provided a reply noting that the Government will investigate exemptions via supporting legislative instrument for the types of situations and arrangements our members enter into. Our concerns about the inconsistent and unclear drafting within the Bill remain however, so we detailed these in a letter to the Leader of the Opposition, Alistair Coe on 31 March 2020, and asked for support to push for an exemption in the Legislative Assembly.

The development and implementation of an engineering registration scheme was an election commitment from the ACT Government, due to undergo planning and development this year. Consult Australia and other associations at the Planning and Construction Industry Chief Executive Reference Group (PACICERG) meetings have repeatedly discussed the importance for an ACT scheme to consider and integrate with the schemes in other states and territories, particularly because the ACT is a small jurisdiction. The ACT Manager has regularly raised the need for mutual registration, or at least mutual recognition across borders.

The ACT Government has indicated that their registration scheme is likely to be modelled on the Victorian scheme. Due to the upcoming ACT election, it is unlikely that the scheme will be implemented in the ACT before 2021 at the earliest, so we are continuing to advocate for mutual registration and supporting the proposal of a single register administered in Victoria during its development.

The ACT Government is engaging with Consult Australia as one of the primary relevant industry bodies while continuing work on the development of the scheme. ACT Chief Engineer Adrian Piani has been in discussions regarding the details of the scheme plans and regulatory issues with the ACT Committee in May 2020, and has committed to continue this engagement as scoping progresses.

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Consult Australia has continued to advocate for a strong and clear pipeline of work to be announced by the ACT Government and has also raised the consulting industry’s ability to support the government with client-side project management.

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What’s happening at Consult Australia

SA

Jan Irvine The short-term economic response of the South Australian Government has been positive, however with safety and short term business continuity in hand, as much as it can be under the dynamic and changing circumstances, Consult Australia members are now turning their attention to the economic environment and the long term sustainment of their businesses, and in turn, the sustained employment of the South Australians involved with the planning and design of South Australia’s built form, infrastructure, and natural environment.

We have been busy advocating these issues on your behalf via the following meetings: Tony Braxton-Smith, CEO, Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure (DPTI) While acknowledging DPTI’s work with the first round of stimulus projects able to be delivered within three months (under the SA Government stimulus package), Consult Australia expressed concern regarding the long-term economic impact. We advocated for a refined, targeted focus of stimulus funding be directed to upfront planning to leave a legacy from investment during stimulus packages. DPTI are very much aware of the need for longer term thinking, planning studies and business cases to be done to put in place a long-term robust infrastructure pipeline.

Stuart Hocking, Deputy CE, Department of Treasury and Finance (DTF) We expressed concern over the longer-term economic impact and advocated for a mid to long term steady pipeline of work accessible to a range of consultancy businesses to ensure we can keep our people employed. Discussion moved to procurement, the hardened insurance market and the consequence to our members – higher premiums and narrowing of coverage. Added to this, our members are still experiencing onerous contractual terms and conditions which place further burden on business. While a review of the DPTI suite of contracts, terms and conditions, has been announced, this is not due for completion until 31 December 2020. The need for a rolling pipeline of work and an accelerated contract review were noted by Mr Hocking as items to be discussed further internally.

The SA Government supports this recommendation, recognises that the use of standard contracts and clauses for all procurement processes (including construction) simplifies the tendering process for business. The Implementation Plan for this recommendation is that DPTI will finalise standard contracts and associated clauses to be used for all construction projects (including those undertaken by accredited agencies) within 12 months.

this is resulting in projects being placed on hold and/or not being released. Following a virtual forum held with Matt and three local council leaders to inform our members, we understand the LGA(SA) has several strategies to support councils in these uncertain times and that councils are working hard to ensure maintenance work and capital projects being rolled-out and are are employing local businesses.

Our events are continuing via video conferencing - as always, details of all our events can be found on our website and please feel free to contact sa@consultaustralia.com.au for any further information.

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Infrastructure SA (ISA) ISA is currently undertaking work in relation to COVID-19 recovery.

The Government’s overarching COVID recovery work is across three teams – Infrastructure, Digital and Community. The Infrastructure team will be looking to build resilient supply chains, understand what investment and support is needed and ensure a strong pipeline and economy. Advice and information is being sought from the Construction Sector Sub-Committee under the Infrastructure team.

Consult Australia Manager SA, Jan Irvine is a member of this subcommittee.

We have written to the Minister for Local Government, The Hon Stephan Knoll MP and Matt Pinegaar, CEO of the Local Government Association (SA) on the challenges being faced by many local councils and offering assistance to the SA Local Government sector. Our small business members are particularly reliant on the pipeline of work from local councils. We understand that some councils, particularly smaller councils, are facing difficulties and

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NT

Jan Irvine Consult Australia recently held a consultation session in late April with Department of Trade Business and Innovation (DTBI, Procurement NT), the Buy Local Industry Advocate (Denys Stedman) and key Northern Territory Government (NTG) Agency representatives for our sector to discuss the recently announced Value for Territory Assessment Framework and the first phase, assessment of local content. This session allowed interactive discussion as DTBI sought Consult Australia member input and feedback on the Framework concept and proposed assessment model.

Key points raised were: • Employment – how will specialised skills be handled, for example where there is no local capability, therefore interstate, or international expertise is required.

• Mandating indigenous employment targets can be challenging in the consultancy environment, would they apply to total employment of local component of workforce / project delivery.

• Importance of a flexible system.

• The perceived misalignment between project requirements and assessment question / criteria, as well as between different agency practice.

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•N TG is perceived as lacking opportunities for innovation.

Encouraging, enabling, and allowing innovation is viewed by industry as a path to improving the overall value for Territory outcomes through procurement. Specific barriers to innovation can include overly prescriptive specification (that are not linked to local opportunities), reluctance or refusal to consider alternative offers and lack of opportunity for industry to influence projects in the planning phase.

• I nconsistency of approach (by agencies) and outcomes (in tender assessments) is cited as a cause of frustration for industry.

Consistency (of framework and in turn outcome) across all tenders would allow industry to reliably predict and improve their competitiveness and leads to a more administratively efficient tender process for industry.

The phase one industry consultation period closed on 30 April. As the NTG moves through the development of the Value for Territory Assessment Framework, they will continue to respond to feedback provided by industry and advising how industry’s advice was considered and what changes were made as a result of the industry consultation.

As this work progresses, we will keep members informed and provide avenues to be a part of the discussion. If you would like to join the emailing list to receive this or any other NT information, please contact jan@consultaustralia.com.au.

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• Amount of information to be released relating to assessment criteria/weightings – more transparency is preferred.

WA

Diane Dowdell The Western Australian Government has been very busy over the past quarter responding to issues arising from the Covid-19 pandemic. Some early benefits that we are seeing flow from a number of temporary legislative and policy changes include: • Streamlining and expediting the process for road and maritime projects worth up to $20 million by minimising the costs of tendering and maximising the spread of work among small and medium sized contractors.

• The Department of Main Roads fast tracking the tendering process for a number of large-scale road projects worth over $2.37 billion • From 2 June, procurement rules for Government agencies are changing to include allowing direct purchase levels to increase to $250,000, lifting the threshold on the public tender processes to $500,000 and enable agencies to obtain written quotes in place of a tender between $250,000 to $500,000 where one or more local businesses can supply.

The stimulus measures are focussed on maximising business opportunities and support Western Australian employment. As these measures are released by the WA Government we are staying abreast of them and continuing our engagement to share the concerns of the membership to ensure challenges are highlighted during these challenging times.

The new WA State Manager, Diane Dowdell commenced in late April providing an opportunity to re-connect directly with a number of agencies. Since she commenced, she has been in touch with officers from the Department of Finance, Infrastructure WA, and the Premier’s Office and has a range of engagements planned as we move into the Recovery Planning phase.

The Procurement Bill 2020 was tabled in the WA Parliament in mid-May. The Bill is one of the recommendations to have come out of the Public Accounts Committee “Knowing what good look like: Challenges in managing major public sector contracts”. The Inquiry had been established to enquire into and report on public sector management practices around contracts and procurement.

Our events program in Western Australia has been impacted significantly due to the social distancing requirements. However, that hasn’t stopped a number of webinars from being run including one by Isla McRobbie from Jackson McDonald on responding to Covid-19. Our FutureNet group is focussed on developing an alternative event programme while restrictions are in place and the opportunity to participate in a range of national events has been a benefit for WA members.

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Consulting Matters What’s happening at Consult Australia

NSW

Linda Gaunt The Design and Building Practitioners Bill 2019 (NSW)

the legislation and development of the regulations will be reasonable;

The Design and Building Practitioners Bill 2019 (NSW) passed Parliament recently and is awaiting Royal Assent.

 continue to advocate for mutual registration of engineers, as per our advocacy in Victoria – that is one fee one registration; and

Key aspects of the new legislation include:

 Produce additional guidance on the legislation, including the duty of care and compliance regime.

• Obligations on design practitioners to prepare and declare regulated designs The obligations have not been substantially changed since the Consultation Draft Bill and much detail still needs to be resolved in the regulations.

• A statutory duty of care that commences at Royal Assent Any person who carries on the following work: (a) building work (including residential building work within the meaning of the Home Building Act 1989); (b) the preparation of regulated designs and other designs for building work; (c) the manufacture or supply of a building product used for building work; (d) supervising, coordinating, project managing or otherwise having substantive control over the carrying out of any work referred to in paragraph (a), (b) or (c) Must exercise reasonable care to avoid economic loss caused by defects in or related to a building and arising from the above work.

(Note ‘building’ has the same meaning as Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (NSW)).

• A registration scheme for engineers This scheme was a late amendment and will require engineers doing structural, civil, mechanical, fire safety and electrical engineering to be registered. The registration will be required for all engineers – not just those working on buildings. This aspect along with the investigation, disciplinary and enforcement mechanisms will not commence until 1 July 2021, with details to be worked through.

Consult Australia’s advocacy on the Bill did get reflected in the following areas: • We advocated for a protection for practitioners against being improperly influenced into providing a declaration. This is reflected in the final legislation (in contrast the Consultation Draft of the Bill which only prohibited a practitioner from receiving a benefit in exchange for a declaration).

• We advocated for the developer to be captured by the legislation – this is somewhat reflected in the duty of care applying to a person that is ‘(d) supervising, coordinating, project managing or otherwise having substantive control over the carrying out of any work referred to in paragraph (a), (b) or (c)’ Next Steps: • Consult Australia will:  continue our positive engagement with the NSW Building Commission to ensure that the practical implementation of

•W e encourage members to advise us how the legislation, once in force, is impacting your business, for example:  whether the duty of care increases disputation;  what financial and administrative burdens you are facing to implement the legislation.

COVID-19 Agency Meetings Water NSW A meeting was held with Water NSW to discuss their work during the COVID-19 period. At this meeting Consult Australia representatives discussed the “Supply of Work” and the “Supply of Payment”. Outcomes of the meeting included: -W ater NSW indicated that they support a consistent pipeline of work as they believe this is better for planning.

-C urrently there is a large portfolio of major projects in the public domain, by and large beyond these the projects are renewals based.

-W ater NSW have been undertaking on-line project briefings and have had good response to these briefings.

-P ayment terms for suppliers was discussed with representatives from Water NSW indicating that they are monitoring this and making sure that they are doing their bit to ensure on-time payment.

-T hey are publishing their refreshed standard form contract on their website. Anyone who has feedback can email to their procurement inbox. Indicating that this would occur within a month.

Transport for NSW In late May a workshop was held between TfNSW representatives and Consult Australia member and staff representatives. This workshop is one of a number in the planning and was a good twoway discussion. Content of the workshop included discussions on: -T fNSW & RMS procurement, including an update on the amalgamation of RMS & TfNSW, in respect of procurement functions and guidance recovery.

-C OVID-19 response and recovery with Consult Australia outlining the feedback from around the country.

-A discussion on key issues with contracts and ways forward.

-A n agreement to meet on a regular basis for a two-way discussion.

What’s happening at Consult Australia Consulting Matters

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QLD

David Shillington EVENTS We have hosted a range of speakers and topics covering the key issues for our industry and your business.

In early June Consult Australia hosted the NSW Building Commissioner Mr David Chandler OAM at an exclusive on-line discussion. Those in attendance enjoyed hearing about the swift progress the Building Commissioner has made to date and the work that is to continue.

Claire Garner-Barnes Head of Strategy, Planning and Innovation, Infrastructure NSW and Head of the Infrastructure NSW Bushfire Recovery Team joined a Boardroom discussion to share their work to date and the pipeline for NSW Bushfire recovery.

Other key events of interest included: - Demystifying the Minefield of PI Insurance – CBP Lawyers and Planned Insurance - The 7 C’s to an Emotionally Fit, Motivated and Productive Workforce – Kim Seeling-Smith - Leading Through Crisis and Into Recovery – Mandy Holloway - The Future of Work – Future Net Sydney Visit the NSW webpage on www.consultaustralia.com.au to see our exciting upcoming events programme.

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As this is my first column I would like to start by introducing myself as the recently appointed QLD State Manager, David Shillington. I have a NFP and elite sports background and I thoroughly enjoy working in the business and community space to represent their best interests. I’m looking forward to meeting you soon and hope to see you at a future event. Feel free to reach out in the meantime if you need anything at David@consultaustralia.com.au Speaking of events, from July we’ll be uploading a number of events to the Consult Australia Queensland webpage. With a key focus here at Consult Australia being mental health, the first event will feature Aaron Walsh who is the Mental Skills Coach for the NZ Chiefs Super 14 Rugby team. Definitely not one to miss as he presents mental health skills in an upbeat and practical way whilst tying it into elite sport.

My first two months in the role have been incredibly busy with government and business all responding to COVID-19 with various working groups and initiatives. This has been a great opportunity to consult our members about their views on recovery and present these to government. Working alongside the Queensland committee, we developed a Framework for COVID-19 Recovery which we submitted to the Department of Transport and Main roads (TMR), and a document to the Coordinator General’s office with key actions that could ensure our industry has a stronger recovery from the disruption.

We have maintained a strong independent voice for our members whilst also collaborating with the QMCA and CCF. Together we have met with Neil Scales, Amanda Yeates, and Allan Uhlmann from TMR discussing cooperative contracting and the need for us as an industry to work better together. As part of this discussion we’ve been talking best practice social procurement and innovative incentives. I am keen to hear your experiences on achieving social benefits from projects and the range of incentives you’ve seen (including those you like and the least favoured ones) – drop me a line!

In the calendar we look forward to continuing contribute to the recovery working groups with TMR and the office of Housing and Public Works on behalf of our members. We will meet with the Local Government Association of Queensland to discuss opportunities for our member firms at a local level. In June we met with the Coordinator Generals office, which was very positive. I will continue to work through the ‘Building Bridges’ project with the QMCA. This project is seeking to address the cultural issues within our industry and looks for solutions to make it work better. A fresh and rejuvenated approach to our industry and our relationships with each other is in the making.

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Consulting Matters What’s happening at Consult Australia

Supporting your success 2020 ACTIVITIES AND ACHIEVEMENTS HALF-YEARLY SNAPSHOT As members of Consult Australia we support your success through high profile advocacy, thought leadership, engagement, and services. In the first six months of 2020 our focus has been dominated by COVID-19 related activities. We have: • Helped your business by providing up-to-date information and guidance on COVID-19 related issues.

• Highlighted the value and importance of our industry for COVID-19 economic response and recovery through government engagement.

• ontinued to provided you with opportunities to individually connect with decision-makers via our online events, including our boardroom series.

We have increasingly showcased SME members, for example by including SME business logos on our submission to the Small Business Ombudsman on Supply Chain Financing. During discussions on COVID-19 we have encouraged government initiatives that will support the business continuity of our SME members.

Here is a snapshot of actitivites and achievements for the first half of 2020, across not only COVID-19 related issues but also our priority focus areas, People, Pipeline, Practice, and Procurement. We have:

Written to over 90 government Ministers, CEOs and Agency Heads to share our briefing note on supply of work and supply of payments in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Influenced COVID-19 recovery plans through meetings with: •T he Office of the Deputy Prime Minister – leading to our call on members for best procurement examples.

• Over 20 state/territory agency heads – leading to discussions on procurement and contracting reform.

• I nfrastructure bodies around the country including, Infrastructure Australia, INSW, Infrastructure WA, Building Qld, Infrastructure SA and Infrastructure ACT. • The Deputy Chair of the ACCC raising competition and market impacts.

Participated in COVID-19 response working groups on invitation by government agencies around the country in recognition of our expertise.

Released 14 Briefing Notes on COVID-19 related issues including, JobKeeper, restrictions of movement, commercial tenancies, WHS, and contractual risks.

Made 11 submissions to government consultations on, skills, unfair contracts, building reforms, bushfire recovery, and mental health.

Achieved legislative change including a protection from undue influence in the Design & Building Practitioners Bill 2019 (NSW).

Conducted an Industry Health Check to measure the impact and anticipated impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic across our membership. Thirty percent of members participated. The majority (58%) of responses were from small businesses (up to 19 staff), 24% of responses were from medium businesses (20-199 staff) and remaining 18% were large businesses (200+ staff).

Debated key issues securing quotes in major newspapers, The Australian, The Age, and the AFR. Topics covered included risk and insurance, consultants as essential during COVID-19 shutdown, and our concerns about the HomeBuilder scheme.

What’s happening at Consult Australia Consulting Matters

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The AEC sector’s digital breakthrough is closer than you think Rather than the year of perfect vision that many businesses hoped 2020 would be, we’ve instead been forced to “adapt, improvise and overcome”; to find new ways of working and deal with current challenges and hurdles that nobody could foresee in 2019.

If we’ve learned anything this year, it’s that businesses can respond to unseen threats very quickly, especially those that challenge our capacity to deliver services to clients, and threaten our livelihoods.

In the space of just a few weeks, Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) firms have tackled myriad problems from various quarters including: • moving many or most employees out of offices, to work remotely from home – grappling with access to files and software, bandwidth and capacity, and online collaboration tools in the process; • balancing this challenge against client expectations on projects – especially those currently under construction on-site, which are governed by strict contracts that impose hefty penalties for delays.

The firms that are best able to manage these challenge are those with strong technological foundations, because these underpin agility and resilience, especially in a crisis.

The firms that are best able to manage these challenge are those with strong technological foundations, because these underpin agility and resilience, especially in a crisis.

In fact, this ‘new normal’ has sharply focused the AEC sector’s attention around the importance of technology, IT solutions and digital tools; areas where the sector has lagged behind and underinvested, compared to other industries.

According to research by Deltek (which has provided software solutions to projectbased businesses for the past 34 years), 92%of AEC organisations spend less than 4% of their budget on digital research and development. According to EY figures, the average investment spend on R&D is 3.8% at the 2,500 leading companies worldwide, while the top 10 sectors spend about 6% on R&D. Moving forward, Deltek recommends that AEC firms should increase their investment in digital transformation to help them keep abreast – and ahead – of the types of disruption that are currently re-shaping so many other industries, such as the media and retailing.

Paradoxically, technology is the source of this threatened disruption, and the solution, because it enables businesses to unlock new ways of working; to deliver new efficiencies; and even to create new business models.

However, many AEC firms find themselves paralysed in the face of too much choice, and they are consequently unsure how to start. That’s why – at the beginning of 2020 – Deltek released a roadmap to digital transformation for AEC consulting firms.

‘Digital Transformation in Architecture, Engineering and Construction: 5 Steps to Success’ provides a clear-sighted overview of the path ahead, and will help consulting firms deliver greater efficiencies, build better buildings, and improve customer outcomes.

The free guide offers equal benefit to those consulting firms that are struggling to respond to the effects of the pandemic, and those that wish to position themselves for ongoing success once the current threat is over.

Powering Project Success Software built for the AEC industry to improve productivity, boost collaboration and increase project profitability.

Visit Deltek.com to learn more

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Consulting Matters Features

If responding to recent unexpected challenges has taught us anything, it’s that businesses need to be responsive and resilient in order to survive, and putting the right digital foundations in place now is key to weathering this current crisis, and to prospering once the immediate threat has passed.

“The truth is, there will never be a perfect time to begin your transformation journey,” the guide states. “And there will never be a perfect digital transformation plan; it’s simply too broad in scope to consider every possible angle.

“While delaying the transformation is comfortable and safe, stalling for too long means you run the risk of being made obsolete by your competitors, or by rapidly shifting market forces.”

In the face of too-much-choice – and indecision around the best, first move – the guide provides: • An AEC-specific definition of digital transformation, and an explanation of why consulting firms are facing a tipping point right now; • The key issues that AEC firms should consider, whether they have already embarked on a digital transformation journey or are just setting out; and • How AEC firms can ensure a smooth transition by integrating people, processes and the right technology partner, to drive an effective change management process.

It also outlines five simple steps to help AEC firms make a solid start quickly, and then scale-up to a full transformation over time.

If responding to recent unexpected challenges has taught us anything, it’s that businesses need to be responsive and resilient in order to survive, and putting the right digital foundations in place now is key to weathering this current crisis, and to prospering once the immediate threat has passed.

If your Architecture, Engineering and Construction consulting business is ready to take the lead from an expert guide – to streamline current processes and unlock new efficiencies to obtain a competitive edge – take the first step by downloading the guide at: https://info.deltek.com/AEC-DigitalTransformation-ANZ. Rachael Bernstone Deltek

Features Consulting Matters

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Building resilience in tough times ONE WAY TO STRATEGICALLY PLAN FOR THE DECADE THAT HAS JUST STARTED IS TO REFLECT ON PAST DECADES AND NOTE THE ‘MEGA-TREND’ FORCES THAT WILL BE ACTING ON US THIS DECADE.

Our resilience is being tested, for many of us more than ever before, and this is at every level, personally, as teams and organisations, as a sector, nation, and one could even say as a species. Fascinating as it is to examine how different countries are responding to the pandemic, for most of us the most relevant unit of analysis is personal, work team, organisation and of course family and socially.

How resilient are we when ‘under attack’ and involved in severe disruption?

It is over a decade since we had our last economic shock, and this one is much deeper and involves not just economics for us all. It brings health risk and that includes mental health associated with isolation and knowledge of what is happening globally.

For our Millennial and Gen Z employees, this is their first big recession.

What can our organisations do to increase our collective resilience to shocks?

There are four main things that we should do in leading and participating in our organisational life at work, which I label strengthening systems, flexing in real-time, culture-attitude and planning. Strengthening systems means having the means for managing projects and processes that will reduce the likelihood and impact of shocks to our businesses. For example, if one is a builder, is it riskier to have a single source of critical materials such as building materials at lowest cost in say China, or to get 80% from there and 20% locally or at least from two different Chinese regions and suppliers? How about locally storing some buffer inventory if possible for emergencies, of key inputs, and twinning our key data? Perhaps we could have done this better with face masks, PPE, and some pharmaceuticals before the pandemic hit us. As with any form of insurance policy, there may be a price to pay to achieve this element of resilience, so it’s a case of balancing ‘risk and return’, just as with other business decisions. Good tools are available to formulate and evaluate these decisions, such as decision trees.

Once we have designed our organisational systems and structures to be optimally robust in terms of costs, benefits and risks, we should ensure we are able to quickly and efficiently flex in real time to the ‘shocks’ that will confront us. The present pandemic caught most of us under-prepared, and

scrambling to cope with new conditions and regulations, and especially changed market forces and reduced demand. As a form of organisational dynamism, high adaptability includes being able to identify the problem early, make decisions, mobilise and then act. Setting up fast decision processes and indeed decentralising some decision-making helps adaptability. An unfortunate counter example of adaptability was the national response to Covid19 in the USA, that was slow to sense it, and slow and inefficient in accepting and responding, leading to higher negative impacts than in countries such as Australia, New Zealand and South Korea.

Australia’s response in setting up a new decision making structure called National Cabinet overcame bureaucracy and led to fast and effective policies.

An organisation’s resilience is ultimately a function of its culture and employees’ behaviours too, as it is difficult to imagine a resilient, responsive and nimble business being so if the bulk of its employees are personally staid and resistant to change.

We want a culture of ‘embracing change’, dynamism, and a healthy dose of optimism based on positive psychology and ‘growth mindset’ is also helpful. Of course, these are things we must work on achieving during normal times, with such investments providing a large return when disruptions land on us.

Planning helps. We know that from project management, strategic management and a host of other human and organisational

activities. Even though we don’t know when or exactly what the next pandemic or other major disruption will be, we can ‘generically’ prepare by planning our mode of response, decision making structures and processes, communications plan, and have a second strategic plan ready to pull out, update to fit the circumstances and deploy. This can be done using the well-known approach of Scenario Planning, which asks us to create significantly different scenarios from ‘business as usual’ then brainstorm and plot our way through those.

Starting the process of building resilience Astute executives will build organisational resilience so as not to get caught short next time. For the executives and boards of professional consulting firms, here is a useful thought exercise to start that process: consider and describe an organisation that has the same size and shape as yours that is a fully ‘high-resilience’ business. Contrast it on the four key aspects described above of planning, culture, flexibility and systems, with a ‘low-resilience’ business: describe each of these extreme points. Now consider where your business lies on those dimensions and ask if that is where you want to be when the next big disruption arrives.

Danny Samson Melbourne Univsersity Professor Danny Samson has offered education programs with Consult Australia since 1986, and this year is offering the Melbourne management course online and in person. Comments: d.samson@unimelb.edu.au.

It is over a decade since we had our last economic shock, and this one is much deeper and involves not just economics for us all. It brings health risk and that includes mental health associated with isolation and knowledge of what is happening globally.

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Consulting Matters Features

The sobering lessons for climate change The hardest lessons to learn are the ones that stay with us the longest. If listened to, and absorbed, the really tough lessons we face can have the greatest impact. If that saying is true, what does this lesson of a global pandemic, the likes of which have never been seen before, teach us and our leaders for the other big challenges we face?

What does it tell us we need to do in the face of climate change or other global challenges?

Will it expose our inability to quickly embrace a common platform for dealing with an existential threat, rendering us unable to overcome self-interest? Or will it teach us that the pathway to action has to find a common narrative between the needs of keeping countries and economies moving whilst finding the agreed transition path to the sustainable future we know we need?

One clear lesson from COVID-19 is that none of us like abrupt shocks to our system.

Perhaps the lingering memories of today’s pain points will become the seeds of more definitive action addressing the climate change challenge.

Very few voices have argued for ignoring the COVID-19 pandemic: they might want a quicker shutdown, or a faster re-opening of the economy; they might argue over the human cost compared to the costs of shutting down businesses. But there are few heads completely in the sand. At some point we’ll be on the other side of this crisis and we’ll have all of the reports and white papers to draw on. But for those of us involved in climate-centred strategies, the COVID-19 response is already yielding lessons.

The PR of emergencies You might have seen the meme advising that climate change needs to hire coronavirus’ publicist. The political communication around COVID-19 has been overwhelmingly on the side of caution and action, with detailed cost-benefit descriptions of what has to be sacrificed economically in order to mitigate public health risks. This hasn’t just been explained in terms of how much business will be lost, but also how much governments have to spend. Sitting on our hands has not been an option and governments around the world have taken the rapid, decisive action to shut down their economies rather than let this virus take hold. Compare this to the constant wrangling’s, denial and arguments over climate action.

Of course, the biggest difference between climate change and COVID-19 is immediacy, both in terms of time and space. Coronavirus kills people today and we can see and understand the consequences on TV, radio, internet and social media. But climate change is incremental, discussed in terms of 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius of warming over decades.

Coronavirus is transmitted via the immediacy of space – my actions can be directly traced to impacts on my neighbours, friends and family – or anyone else within arm’s length.

But my actions relating to climate change are felt by faceless, nameless people in far-removed places, and aren’t traced nearly as neatly to my own actions. There’s also no uniformity of approach for the climate: one group of nations commits to decarbonising their economies; another says its emissions will grow for another 20 years; and another group seek reparations from the big emitters.

A divided response is a confused response.

Impacts of a global economy The COVID-19 and climate crises have something in common that many of us do not want to talk about. The need for a global transport system – for freight and people – and the emissions that come with it are already responsible for almost one quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The OECD estimates the number of tonnekilometres of freight in our transport systems will triple to 2050. This is quite aside from the extra energy requirements of regions that build industrial capacity where none previously existed. The corresponding problem of globalisation that has led to coronavirus is the speed and ease with which the virus could originate in Wuhan and be spread to the entire world via commercial global transport systems. The first thing

to be shut down by governments in the COVID-19 pandemic was international arrivals at airports. We all accepted this instinctively, very quickly.

By comparison, the climate change threat is unlikely to ever see a shut down in global transport and travel. Indeed, transport – air travel in particular – has been a ‘handsoff’ zone for many when it comes to deep decarbonisation.

Interestingly, one likely shift post pandemic will be more local manufacturing as countries look to secure their own supply chains.

Again, the climate may be an unintended beneficiary, given commercial international freight has been one of the fastest growing sources of emissions in the past decade.

A sign of systems pushed too far The coronavirus response has been couched in scientific language but is intuitive: we talk of social distancing and community transmissions, closing our borders, quarantining ships and stockpiling critical supplies. None of these concepts are unusual to humans – even to those who think governments are over-reacting. We instinctively understand that the human social system is one of smaller groups, and that unfettered travel can be a gateway to disease. So self-isolation is annoying, but we understand it; and those who can, immediately swap travel for Skype, Zoom or Teams.

Yet exchanging travel for FaceTime was also a choice three months and six months and a year ago, when the imperative was addressing climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But we didn’t ‘shut down’ our travel, let alone entire economies. We told ourselves that videoconferencing just wasn’t the same as

One clear lesson from COVID-19 is that none of us like abrupt shocks to our system. Perhaps the lingering memories of today’s pain points will become the seeds of more definitive action addressing the climate change challenge.

Features Consulting Matters

being there. As it happens, systems thinking is also the basis of climate change.

The earth’s system strikes a balance and the release of too many man-made greenhouse gases into the atmosphere eventually tips the climate system to a dangerous point. This should or could also be an intuitive human concept, as straightforward as the idea that social distancing holds us back from a public health tipping point – but we struggle to cut through.

The next phase There is much to be learned from the coronavirus responses, but perhaps governments dealing with this can also learn from climate strategists. As governments roll out wage subsidy packages and lowrisk business loans, the next phase – the economic reconstruction phase – is going

to entail a lot of stimulus spending. It is important that amidst the inevitable construction of roads and freeways, the infrastructure build-out includes the assets required of the decarbonising world.

In a country like Australia, where more than seventy per cent of our electricity still comes from fossil fuels, this stimulus-construction phase might be the once-in-a-generation chance to build what would otherwise be put-off.

New interconnectors between South Australia and New South Wales, Tasmania and Victoria to enable the deployment of more utility scale wind, solar and pumped hydro; kickstarting the hydrogen industry with a focus not just on production facilities but also the transport and industrial applications which will provide the demand; distributed

Build your understanding – with NCC CPD Online courses coming soon!

energy resources like residential batteries and energy management systems that mean we have to produce less power at source during peak times. To name a few.

Perhaps this is where COVID-19 and climate change can crossover? One is immediate while the other is incremental. If we have to stimulate our economy out of the hibernation we are putting it into, why not build the infrastructure that gives both our communities and the planet a fighting chance in the long term?

Paul Gleeson Aurecon Aurecon’s award-winning blog, Just Imagine provides a glimpse into the future for curious readers, exploring ideas that are probable, possible and for the imagination. This post originally appeared on Aurecon’s Just Imagine blog.

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Consulting Matters Features

How resilient is your management of risk?

This time of working with Covd-19 has tested many organisation’s resilience to managing their risks especially now most employees are working remotely.

Covid-19 has tested our ability to survive in an era of reduced workloads and has posed many challenges in maintaining your quality and high standards of review, sign off and audit of others’ work.

The insurance industry has become aware of such risks and are concentrating on investigating how firms respond to such challenges.

In our last article in 2019 we detailed the challenges faced by the insurance industry in providing PI insurance for the engineering profession. This is part of a global restriction in available insurance capacity for the insurance industry and specifically Lloyd’s of London who are the main insurer of engineers in Australia.

Risk selection is now paramount and Insurers are closely examining your arrangements for managing risk and your resilience (both structurally and financially) in the face of

Risk selection is now paramount and Insurers are closely examining your arrangements for managing risk and your resilience (both structurally and financially) in the face of those risks presented by Covid-19 and when employees are working remotely. those risks presented by Covid-19 and when employees are working remotely.

Now is the time to examine your work practices in preparation for the renewal of your PI insurance.

Key areas include: Client Selection Review client selection, and if consideration is given as to whether the opportunity falls within your clearly defined target market.

Consider those clients who have proved

problematic and avoid that type of client; Who is your typical client? Consider your dependency upon a particular client or a particular industry sector. Should a major client or your dominant industry sector experience financial downturn this can impact adversely upon your business. Client diversification is attractive to insurers; Outsourcing How much of your work needs to be outsourced to external sub-consultants?

Insurers examine this aspect of your

Features Consulting Matters

business. How do you assess competencies and manage their ability to undertake the work you assign them?

How resilient are they in the current Covid-19 environment?

What level of PI insurance do they purchase and how do you ensure it remains current and capable of responding to a claim – e.g. no onerous exclusions etc; Contractual Documentation Do you enter into a written agreement with each customer? Who dictates such agreements? Do you impose standard contract terms for each project? Have you limited your liability under such contracts to a fixed financial amount?

Insurers now focus upon the risk of consequential losses – losses not directly related to the impact of your negligent act, error or omission. Insurers are moving to exclude claims for loss of opportunity, lost production, alternative rental costs; lost profits and similar losses. Whilst we fiercely resist this, we need to demonstrate how you limit and manage your liability in this area; Record Keeping The defence of any claim will rely upon extensive records to articulate your case.

Insurers examine what measures are taken in maintaining records necessary for the defence and explanation of your actions.

Do you enter into a written agreement with each customer? Who dictates such agreements? Do you impose standard contract terms for each project? Have you limited your liability under such contracts to a fixed financial amount?

Fee Income and Financial Resilience Consider your management of fee income and your ability to accumulate cash to support the daily financial demands of the business. Insurers are concerned that in this time of reduced work, corners may be cut to continue your business and quality suffer.

How do you avoid this?

These dramatically different times have forced changes in work practices. The insurance industry is closely examining the resilience of firms to continue to manage their risks and to maintain business continuity. Begin your review now!

Should you desire assistance to secure your professional indemnity insurance, please call 1800 077 933.

Chris Bovill BRIC

Process Management

To the extent that any of the above content constitutes advice, it is general advice without reference to your needs or objectives and therefore cannot be relied upon. Before acting on the above information you should obtain advice specific to your needs.

How do you ensure the work produced is of the highest quality? Do you undertake peer review? Do you have clearly defined steps in each project that must be approved to proceed the next stage? Who undertakes this review? How is this done remotely?

Chris Bovill is the founder and Managing Director of Bovill Risk & Insurance Consultants Pty Ltd (BRIC) and has been arranging professional indemnity insurance for engineers since 1994.

BRIC are specialist professional indemnity insurance brokers who have arranged PI insurance for thousands of engineers.

Insurers are interested in your resilience in being able to continue effective record keeping during this period of remote working;

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Consulting Matters

Want to talk insurance with someone who knows your industry?

Working your way through your businesses insurance requirements, particularly when it comes to professional indemnity, can be like navigating your way through a forest.

That's why, way back in 2009, Consult Australia created the PI Pathway and partnered with brokers that we were confident not only knew our industry, but would also provide our members with the level of service that we would be happy to endorse.

Bovill Risk IC and Planned Insurance have been partners on the pathway since its inception, and nine years later they are continuing to help our members find their way through the insurance forest for not just PI insurance but across all their business insurance needs.

To make sure you have the best available insurance for your business or project contact our PI Pathway Partners now.

Protecting Professionals

Bovill Risk & Insurance Consultants www.bric.com.au

Planned Cover www.plannedcover.com.au

Chris Bovill, Managing Director PO BOX 1020 Richmond North Victoria 3121 1800 077 933 bw@bric.com.au

Simon Gray, State Manager PO Box 1983, North Sydney New South Wales, 2059 1800 077 933 sydney@plannedcover.com.au

Photo courtesy of Seb Zurcher

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Consulting Matters Features

Cbus paves a role in Australia’s economic recovery

COVID-19 has had a dramatic economic impact in Australia and globally which will take many years to recover from. While some work in the construction industry has continued, our Cbus members have felt the economic impact through reduced work hours and projects being put on hold.

It’s acknowledged the construction industry will play a leading role in Australia’s economic recovery. And it’s Cbus, the $52 billion super fund representing the construction industry, which’ll contribute to this recovery at many points along the way.

The fund sees opportunities in keeping current projects going and aiming to build a decent pipeline of work over the next few years. Cbus believes its investments are likely to contribute to the creation of around 100,000 Australian jobs through this recovery.

Investing in the recovery Cbus has a strong history of job creation through Cbus Property*. Cbus will focus on more than just large-scale property projects to achieve a similar number of jobs through the recovery.

The fund will play a leading role in industry and government forums, identifying ways the super industry can assist in the recovery.

Through a close relationship with sponsoring organisations Cbus will use industry insights to help prioritise ‘shovel ready’ and future projects.

Cbus can invest capital in a range of ways that can contribute to the creation of jobs.

These include:

• Expansion of existing assets

• Direct debt and corporate opportunities

One of the most effective ways of increasing the value of existing property and infrastructure assets is to upgrade existing facilities or undertake further development.

Within our Alternative Growth and Mid-risk alternative asset classes Cbus looks for direct investments in corporate opportunities with Australian listed companies and direct lending, respectively.

Cbus is already a provider of debt facilities for smaller to medium tier construction projects, offering more flexible time horizons than traditional bank financing. In this space Cbus may also consider opportunities that provide funding for social and affordable housing.

The fund believes there’ll be recapitalisation opportunities with distressed Australian companies; companies that will be here for the longer term.

• New developments Cbus’ current exposure to greenfields development is mostly through directly owned investment in Cbus Property and Bright Energy Investments. Cbus Property recently announced an anchor tenant for its Pirie Street development that’s about to commence in Adelaide and will create 2,000 jobs. Cbus will continue to provide capital to Cbus Property for their pipeline of highly sustainable, quality commercial and residential developments across Australia.

In its infrastructure portfolio, Cbus are investing in the construction of the 180MW Warradarge Wind Farm in WA through Bright Energy Investments. This project will create 200 jobs.

Many of Cbus’ infrastructure assets have future development pipelines in their business plans and the fund will participate in providing capital towards these when they’re approved as priority projects.

Cbus contributes to a stronger economy Cbus members understand super is a longterm investment. The Fund builds members’ retirement savings while also creating jobs in the industry and as a result provides decent work. This all contributes to the recovery and a stronger economy.

Felicia Goh Cbus * Cbus Property Pty Ltd is a wholly-owned subsidiary of United Super Pty Ltd and has responsibility for the development and management of Cbus’ direct property investments.

This information is about Cbus and figures are correct as at 5 May 2020. It does not take into account your specific needs. You should look at your own financial position, objectives and requirements before making any financial decisions. Read the relevant Cbus Product Disclosure Statement to decide if Cbus is right for you. Call 1300 361 784 or visit cbussuper.com.au for a copy.

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Ten keys to increasing organisational resilience resilience. Training via role-playing crisis management scenarios that simulate events are regularly undertaken. Testing of resilience knowledge is continuous and new staff are onboarded to the approach that the organisation has to resilience.

7. Differentiate and dominate Not having your eggs in the same basket is a “no brainer” when is comes to being resilient to shocks, particularly those which affect a certain market sector. Standing out from the crowd and dominating in your field, albeit from a product (consulting services) or price point of view, will ensure that your organisation is “on top of the pyramid” as less resilient competitors fall way.

8. Flexibility

1. Tone from the top Leaders must openly and continually communicate their values and expectations regarding resilience and in so doing, set the tone. The Board’s and CEO’s behaviour tells employees what counts and what’s rewarded and sanctioned. A leadership failure and the organisational “blind spots” that contribute to dysfunctional behaviour will undermine organisational resilience efforts. In summary, if resilience is not driven from the top, it will most likely not achieve the desired goals.

2. Culture Resilience management is about culture.

Leaders drive culture and culture drives performance. You may have the world’s best policies, processes and systems in place to drive resilience, but will be doomed to suboptimal performance if it is not supported by a strong culture that strives to deliver value.

3. Decision making Resilient organisations would be aware of the role that emotion and bias plays in decision making and would have procedures in place to nullify their effects. Leaders would have the relevant data on hand to make smart decisions after considering all the available options. Resilient leaders are ready, willing and able to ensure that the objectives of their

decisions are achieved by staying the course and seeing it through. Most importantly, they can quickly adjust if the data changes and better options become available.

4. State of awareness and preparedness Resilient organisations strive to be proactive and prepare for eventualities in advance and can recover from events because they are constantly “on their toes” in anticipation for disruption. Consequently, they are not caught off guard when “lightning strikes” and immediately swing into action to roll out a predetermined plan. Resilient companies also continuously scan both their immediate environment and the horizon to detect any changes that may threaten their organisations.

5. Diversity If you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Resilient organisations ensure that leaders are not all “hammers” and consist of people with a diverse skill set and range of personality traits so that decision making options and subsequent choices include as wide a range as practically possible.

6. Resources The right people are appointed to the right roles to both formulate and manage

Rapid economic and technological changes mean that flexible organisations will enjoy an advantage over rigid and change-adverse businesses because their business processes are engineered to support resilience. Flexible organisations respond to change by growing and learning to use change as a driver for innovation and competitive advantage.

9. Have a Plan A and a Plan B Plan A would include having enterprise risk management, business continuity and crisis management frameworks in place. The best laid plans can however fail, so a resilient organisation would have a “Plan B” option that follows an alternative approach and is prepared in advance in the event where initial disaster recovery efforts do not work.

10. War chest In closing and at the end of the day, a war chest (most likely financial) may be all that saves your organisation from the impacts of a Black Swan event, which is defined as an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences. Resilient organisations will ensure that they have a “buffer” to fall back on while they recover from an event which falls outside of their business continuity and disaster recovery plans.

Peter de Bruin BG&E

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Consulting Matters Feature

Rethinking resiliency for port operations Now more than ever, port operators need to account for isolated, disruptive events that have the potential to impact not only their operations, but ultimately the supply chain and profitability.

World trade increasingly relies on longer, larger and more complex port facilities and systems, with maritime transportation a vital trade backbone. As such, when ports experience failures or disruption, its big news.

For example in June 2018, the rollout of a new terminal operating system at the Port of Felixstowe, one of the largest ports in the world and the busiest in the UK, caused significant disruption and decline in productivity issues that reportedly took more than a month to fix.

Five years earlier, the NotPetya cyberattack that hit Danish shipping giant Maersk cost the company more than USD 200 million and led to a temporary shutdown of the largest cargo terminal in the Port of Los Angeles.

These are just two examples of the increasing risks and challenges facing ports around the world, and the pressure to prepare for and respond promptly to threats beyond ‘business as usual’ conditions is mounting.

The most common maritime risk management issues have traditionally been relatively consistent, if not predictable: natural disasters, mechanical failures and human error. Now however, the incredible growth of international trade, the impact of climate change and the introduction of new technologies means the risks are broader and evolving.

The growing list of potential risks for ports includes:

The most common maritime risk management issues have traditionally been relatively consistent, if not predictable: natural disasters, mechanical failures and human error. Now however, the incredible growth of international trade, the impact of climate change and the introduction of new technologies means the risks are broader and evolving.

At the same time, ports are facing increasing pressure to reform; if they haven’t already done so, many ports will need to evolve rapidly from being traditional land and sea interfaces to providers of complete logistics networks.

Without effective risk management and business continuity procedures, the disruptions or shut downs resulting from such events and the negative impacts of rapid transformation can potentially cause significant financial as well as reputational damage. The outcome can also be management and Board exposure to claims and possible prosecution.

How can you achieve effective contingency planning and resilience?

The simple ‘plan, do, check, act’ approach to contingency planning is a universal concept that has been successfully applied around the globe, but like any system it has to be managed and maintained.

The first step to developing an effective contingency plan is to assess the existing business operation to expose the inputs, decision points, processes, information, and connections that produce the outputs and outcomes. In many cases, system weaknesses stem from gaps or discontinuities within these areas, or due to hierarchical system structures and broad dependences.

The following illustrates the first few steps a business can take to embark on the journey of effective contingency planning:

Feature Consulting Matters

Importantly, the contingency plan should aim to identify a process that can be followed to manage a return to normal operations, rather than identifying individual mitigations to known operational risks.

This process should include identifying who has been delegated what authority, the criticality ranking of each business operation so that priorities can be established, who the stakeholders are that need to be contacted, and the responsibilities of individual departments across the business.

So that the system provides a cyclic process, it must incorporate a testing and monitoring process that can identify the effectiveness of the continuity strategy, which may include a mock run through of an emergency event. A mock test is particularly important given that some of the scenarios being planned for may only occur once within our lifetime; however we must be confident that the intended response will be effective and achieve the goals.

In many examples, it is more beneficial to take preventative steps to avoid loss of business operations than to take corrective steps following failure. It will depend on the nature of the failures and the extent of the impact, with a balance between the ongoing cost of prevention and what might be the one-off cost of recovery.

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Having a well-defined strategy in place will enable the business to proactively respond to a disruptive event. The strategy will also provide confidence to your clients and the local community the business serves, that there is a coordinated and tested approach which will minimise the length of the disruption and its impact during an event.

GHD Advisory’s team is well versed in crisis and emergency management, disaster recovery and business continuity (aligned to the ISO22301 standard), our team can advise on suitable organisation, develop functional plans and deliver high quality training, all in line with reputable incident/emergency management systems, such as AIIMS, NIIMS and ICS. Matt East Tristan Anderson GHD

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Consulting Matters Feature

Delivering beyond the Pavement WATER RESILIENCE MEASURES AND OTHER INNOVATIONS ACHIEVED ON THE NEWELL HIGHWAY

In January 2019, the NSW Government partnered with BMD and AECOM to form the Newell Highway Program Alliance.

This strategic partnership will accelerate the delivery of a minimum of forty five kilometres of Highway across about thirty new overtaking lanes over four years. These new lanes will improve safety, reduce travel times, allow more accurate travel planning, improve freight efficiency and provide safer connections between communities on the highway.

When the Alliance was formed, drought conditions and water restrictions affected most of regional NSW, which remain in place.

In response to this, the Alliance proactively adopted innovative water saving measures to limit the amount of water used and reduce the demand on regional drinking water supplies.

Water is often used in construction activities including earthworks and pavement construction to facilitate compaction and mitigate dust generation. To manage the project’s water usage, the Alliance sought approval from Transport for NSW and local councils to use secondary treated or recycled water sourced from nearby water treatment plants. The water was regularly tested to ensure the safety of workers was not compromised. To date, approximately 4,700,000 litres of secondary treated water have been used. In locations where sources were not available, water was sourced from local rivers, creeks and bores.

Other measures implemented to effectively manage and reduce water use on the Alliance included continuous testing of surface water to ensure it met all required specifications for re-use on projects, along with monitoring water levels during road maintenance and construction work and delaying non-essential work when water levels reached critical levels. The Alliance also sought approval to deviate from normal specifications in the rehabilitation of the roadsides. Rather than using imported water sources, they added bonders to seeds and fertilizers to ensure these stay in place, enabling them to wait for rainfall to water the vegetation.

To achieve continuous improvement, the Alliance has also successfully implemented innovations in the following areas: Safety and traffic management: In a first for Transport for NSW, a combination of several traffic management initiatives was used to improve road user and worker safety.

The initiatives implemented include, utilising advance spotters, “Hazard lights on when stopped� signage, traffic separators, rumble strips, wide load information bays, and variable speed limit signage (VSLS). During the design phase, work was undertaken to develop a solution that can be constructed while maintaining two lanes for most of the construction period. This robust traffic management planning has kept delays across each of the worksites to 1.5 minutes or less and enabled two lanes to be kept open for 93 per cent of the time. This has reduced the potential of end of queue incidents, ensured

traffic complies with road work speed zones, and minimised traffic delays caused by incidents on the highway.

Technology: Survey drones were used on thirteen sites to deliver efficient, accurate, and safe mapping of project sites. The use of drones enabled design investigations to be carried out in a shorter timeframe, saving the project about twenty six weeks of site work.

This technology also minimised impact to the community, avoided traffic control measures, provided greater certainty in the design and reduced construction risk.

Waste disposal and management: Recognising the challenges of waste disposal in rural areas, the Alliance has implemented several activities to effectively remove waste near project sites. These include the collection of rubbish from all sites, categorisation of rubbish to encourage recycling, and opportunistic rubbish collection. Since these initiatives began a total volume of approximately 22m3 of general rubbish has been collected to date.

The Alliance has completed nine overtaking lanes to date. The nine lanes encompassing about fourteen kilometres will save about ten minutes in travel time enabling more efficient transport of freight and providing ongoing benefits to regional industry and communities.

Mary Diab Chris Dare AECOM

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Community resilience – the dynamic duo of physical and social infrastructure The COVID experience has shone the light on the deeper dimensions of resilience that are often left ‘until later’ because they’re complex, messy, systems-based challenges that take an un-knowable amount of time to get right. And if we don’t start getting on with actual built urban resilience works to support these then we may lose them forever.

Most of us think of ‘resilience’ as a focus on disaster preparedness and pre-disaster planning, something like a pre-mortem of asset readiness. We see this language underpinned in frameworks such as the TCFD (Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures), GRESB and some emerging rating tools. This is understandable too because we need to be able to measure outcomes in order to understand how we’re tracking. These tools don’t preclude the community resilience side of the equation, but it’s up to us as consultants to bring it into the centre.

New York City and Superstorm Sandy in 2012 taught us that community support and neighbourliness are critical in a city’s ability not just to bounce back afterwards but to survive the chaos when emergency services are busy with the more immediate. NYC’s Building Resiliency Taskforce emerged from this chaos and has a wealth of actionable design and infrastructure interventions that I highly recommend tapping into.

As we’ve staggered from drought, bushfires and storms into COVID-19 we’ve experienced how absolutely vital our communities are. Without them we’re all lost.

And for communities to be truly resilient and even thrive we need to ensure the supporting infrastructure is in place.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines resilience as:

“ the capacity of social, economic, and environmental systems to cope with a hazardous event or trend or disturbance, responding or reorganising in ways that maintain their essential function, identity, and structure, while also maintaining the capacity for adaptation, learning, and transformation” (emphasis mine) ‘Adaptation, learning and transformation’ don’t happen without social resilience, which doesn’t happen without the necessary and right kind of infrastructure.

Here are three enablers that we know work.

These are all based on leverage - the idea of urban acupuncture in the positive sense of creating resilient and even prosperous communities, and they all pinpoint key nodes in what is a dynamic and complex system; Undergrounding power lines There’s no point in building an Urban Forest Strategy if we can’t plant decent trees! We’re still using a system put in place some 100 years ago (and yes Melbourne was much earlier than Sydney!). But now the overhead infrastructure is directly in the way of addressing rising urban heat.

Undergrounding enables a raft of physicalspace living streets infrastructure to move forward; we can establish urban forest to create shade, detain stormwater, extend pavement life and lift biodiversity and real estate values. And we can piggyback the works to establish urban food security, nature-based stormwater systems and embed community micro-grids to create energy security and resilience as well. You’ll need some expert Level 3 support because there is a lot to untangle and re-organise, but the payoff will be there for decades to come.

Dropping speed limits to 20km/h is a story for another day.

Past political hopefuls have fallen on this sword before, but it’s achievable when the right team is curated.

Mixed use zoning Our COVID-life has shown how inefficient our use of floor space is, with offices idle for around 70% of the year in normal times, schools 80% of the year, many of our neighbourhoods just dormitories and endless road networks for us to move between them according to the clock. Without unpacking the industrial-revolution socio-economic roots of city planning, enabling a more diverse neighbourhood-scale mixed-use 24/7 economy through our planning Acts, (which are different for every state, like rail once was) coupled with more sophisticated controls around amenity and fairness would let us capture vastly more value from our neighbourhoods and communities. It could also take an incisive step towards affordability – particularly if that zoning supports innovations such as community land trusts and cooperative living.

Social resilience naturally emerges when we stay in place.

Community governance Is it not the greatest fear of our local Councils that we create community gardens in a burst of enthusiasm only to let them turn to weeds (the gardens that is) when we lose momentum? The physical design and delivery of resilience infrastructure is a relative walk in the park compared to enabling a way for the community to self-manage in the long term, sustainably.

From Local Resilience Planning Groups (UK), The US Post Carbon Institute’s Six Foundations for Building Community Resilience, the EU’s emBRACE framework through to Sydney City Council’s Resilient Sydney – A Strategy for City Resilience 2018, we are seeing a global emergence of frameworks that help communities manage and even govern themselves.

There are still a range of neoliberal-inspired barriers to full community autonomy, but as we get on with urban transformation and communities find their feet we’ll be on the way to a deeper and more meaningful realisation of Resilience.

Digby Hall Northrop Consulting Engineers

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Consulting Matters Feature

Safeguarding the UN Sustainable Development Goals with Resilience Many recent conversations have focussed on how to maintain some of the positive changes in behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic - like reduced flying - that have the potential to support the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs).

Unfortunately, many of the gains we’d already made towards achieving the SDGs have been lost. Estimates by the UN indicate that poverty levels could be set back 30 years.

Our interrelated systems and the interdependencies of the SDGs mean that it will not only be poverty levels that are impacted – health, education and nutrition will too. The impacts of COVID-19 have highlighted how fragile some of our interdependent systems are.

Supply chain disruptions and healthcare capacity limits have demonstrated that the emphasis on efficiency has reduced the resilience of our systems and brought existing issues to the fore in ways that are now very real to the general public, and not just specialised consultants.

While these issues resonate, it will require some work by the consulting sector to understand how we create a new normal that is more resilient and allows economies and communities to not only survive but thrive.

In order to thrive, a resilience lens should not only support communities’ ability to bounce back better and faster, it should promote a transformation. And we are seeing this in the demand from the public for a green recovery that is inclusive and climate sensitive.

The Resilience Shift – a global think tank supported by Arup - has highlighted the potential of the UN SDGs as a guide to actions that could be included in the recovery packages taking shape. To truly embrace resilience, we need to move beyond a focus

on robust and redundant systems to embrace all the qualities of resilience if we are going to get back on and stay on track to achieve the SDGs. And while there have been heartbreaking setbacks, particularly in terms of poverty, there are signs of hope for improved behaviours around sanitation and hygiene.

We need to develop the systems and infrastructure to support these small improvements in ways that will be resilient to whatever the next shock or stress may be.

The Torres Cape Indigenous Council Alliance Inc. (TCICA) has recognized in its opportunities plan the need to be a resilient region. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, it recognised the importance of building resilience in its food supply, and that has now come into sharp focus as supply chains have been disrupted. These disruptions have affected remote communities disproportionately, as food access and affordability have become critical. Improving food resilience will not only ensure that progress can be made and maintained in relation to nutrition and hunger (SDG 2), but can also create economic opportunities (SDG1), improve health outcomes (SDG3) and address water and land constraints (SDG6 and SDG13). If clean energy (SDG7) is used to support these efforts, there is also an impact on (SDG13). In short – the SDGs are clearly linked to each other, and if we deploy a resilience lens in planning and consulting on key projects, we can ensure that progress is both achieved and maintained.

While there is clearly potential to build in resilience from the start of a project, there are opportunities at later stages to integrate resilience. Asset management in particular has the potential to support the achievement and maintenance of many SDGs, with more than 70 per cent of SDGs relating to or relying on infrastructure.

Using the SDGs as a framework encourages a more integrated approach to asset management including enterprise-wide systems and processes, leadership engagement, addressing skills gaps, multiagency collaboration, gender diversity and innovation.

Strong asset management has been shown to improve the longevity of asset life, ensuring that investments are able to contribute to resilience in the short, medium and long-term. It signals a step change in a government’s approach to asset management, indicating a commitment to the economic, social and environmental statements made.

Arup is working with the UN Office of Project Services to support the Bangladesh Local Government Engineering Department to ensure that its investments in rural, urban and water resource infrastructure contribute to the country's SDGs. Physical infrastructure assets provide a means for delivering essential services and play an important role in enhancing and protecting the lives and livelihoods of people and for the developing economy to thrive in Bangladesh.

Prioritising connectivity of people, services and movement of goods is a key part of their investment decisions.

Linking resilience and the UN SDGs improves our ability to achieve both.

Kaitlin Shilling Arup

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The Impact of Covid-19 on Modern Slavery.

Is there an opportunity for positive impact?

I read an article this week, about a migrant worker in India who lost her job in the city.

She is one of many people who come from rural areas for seasonal work in the big cities.

A country in lockdown means no work, no money for food, no way of paying her rent, and transport home either not working or too costly. This lady had no other choice but to join the thousands of people walking back to their home states. In her case, she was walking 1200km…in sandals, with her toddler on her hip, pulling a suitcase behind her.

As a mother of a toddler, I see myself in this brave mother. Every time I hoist my little girl onto my hip, I think of that mother in India.

In this story, I see the tenacity, the will, the courage, and the strength of this community at the end of our supply chains, which provides us with the goods and services we take for granted. If nothing else, Covid-19 has shown us how interdependent we are on each other in our supply chains.

According to Unseen UK, “slavery is the commodification of people for the purpose of exploitation and financial gain.” The International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) estimate before Covid-19, was that there are approximately 46 million people living in slavery in the world today. With sixty per cent of those in forced labour, and two thirds of those living in the Asia-Pacific region, Australians have inadvertently been benefitting from Modern Slavery for many years in our supply chains and operations.

For many millions of people like the mother of this toddler, the impact of Covid-19 is catastrophic. From the closing of the retail sector and associated cancelling of orders and disruption of supply chains, to the lowering of compliance standards of many companies during the crisis, we see the world’s vulnerable and poor becoming more

so. Half a billion people have been pushed into poverty, 265 million people in acute hunger, and 10 million workers to lose most income. Workers who were free are now becoming bonded by debt to their employers to help pay their bills during lockdown. In some industries, such as the manufacturing of PPE, factory workers are faced with increasing human rights abuses.

While isolation is difficult here in Australia, for those who are unable to isolate in crowded living conditions, the challenges are much greater. With no running water to wash hands, or money to buy hand sanitiser or face masks, there is an increased risk of Covid-19 spreading through densely populated areas of the world’s poor.

Having worked with survivors of human trafficking, I know that human traffickers are heartless, agile and quick to diversify.

During a crisis, they are often the first on the ground, exploiting those who are desperate.

Additionally, the law enforcement in many countries has been impacted, with antitrafficking taskforces being redeployed for enforcing restrictions, leaving human trafficking largely unmonitored in many countries.

We can maintain our corporate values, and recognise, own and act on our share of responsibility when it comes to supply chain integrity. This is an opportunity to reduce complexity in supply chains, and increase our ethical practices, while at the same time safeguarding workers, partners and distribution channels.

According to a recent ILO report, an estimated 1.25 billion workers, representing almost 38% of the global workforce, are employed in sectors that are now facing a severe decline in output and a high risk of workforce displacement. Key sectors include retail trade, accommodation, hospitality, food services and manufacturing. Particularly in low- and middle-income countries, hard-hit sectors have a high proportion of workers in informal employment and workers with limited access to health services and social protection. Workers face a high risk of falling into poverty and will experience greater challenges in regaining their livelihoods during the recovery period.

However, the impact of Covid-19 is lost if we don’t also see it as an opportunity for Australian companies to make a positive global impact. We can maintain our corporate values, and recognise, own and act on our share of responsibility when it comes to supply chain integrity. This is an opportunity to reduce complexity in supply chains, and increase our ethical practices, while at the same time safeguarding workers, partners and distribution channels. While consumer behaviour patterns are changing, an opportunity exists to understand, empathise and rebuild relationships with customers and stakeholders and increase trust and transparency in supply chains. During the recovery phase, an opportunity exists to integrate sustainability into our business recovery strategy, and make sustainability at the centre of decision making, while also building flexibility and resilience into our supply chains.

Through the chaos, there is an opportunity to realign and reorder things in a more productive and positive way. The actions we take in the weeks and months to come will become the true impact of Covid-19 on Modern Slavery. Working together, we can seize the opportunity and build a stronger and healthier global community. What is the world we want to create?

Sarah Morse Unchained Business Services Sarah Morse is the Director of Unchained Business Services. Unchained inspires Australian companies to be leaders in addressing modern slavery.

Contact Unchained at www.unchained.net.au for more information on conducting a Gaps Analysis or Risk Assessment on modern slavery in your supply chains, and how your company can comply with the Modern Slavery Act.

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Consulting Matters Feature

Resilience in the face of Rising Waters COASTLINES IN AUSTRALIA ARE FACING INCREASED PRESSURES FROM OUR CHANGING CLIMATE AND RISING SEA LEVELS, INTENSIFICATION OF STORMS AND MORE FREQUENT EXTREME EVENTS. ON THE NORTHERN BEACHES OF SYDNEY, HIGHLY POPULATED COLLAROY-NARRABEEN BEACH IS RANKED AS AUSTRALIA’S THIRD MOST AT RISK AREA FROM COASTAL PROCESSES – AN ACCOLADE IT WOULD RATHER NOT HAVE. Coastlines in Australia are facing increased pressures from our changing climate and rising sea levels, intensification of storms and more frequent extreme events. On the Northern Beaches of Sydney, highly populated CollaroyNarrabeen Beach is ranked as Australia’s third most at risk area from coastal processes – an accolade it would rather not have.

In the past four years alone, a number of significant events have tested the resilience of residents, staff and elected officials of Northern Beaches Council, and even the New South Wales government coastal legislation. In June 2016, over fifty metres of beach eroded in one chaotic night as an East Coast Low battered the area, leaving properties and utilities in tatters, while another 700 homes were evacuated due to flooding. More recently in February 2020, 4000 properties were evacuated as Narrabeen Lagoon flooded, roads were closed and landforms became saturated and unstable. At the same time the beaches were yet again smashed. This pattern of more frequent and devastating events is repeated up and down coastlines around the world.

Protecting urban coastlines and the people that live and play there (85% of Australians live by the coast) is a complex and challenging dilemma, demanding the attention of regulators, engineers, planners and the public alike. How can we continue to face rising seas and extreme events while minimising disruption, in a time where budgets are limited and sustainable solutions are sought?

We have to become resilient to climate

change and learn to live with water, not fight it (because over time we will lose that battle).

It’s a challenge that Northern Beaches Council must face as it attempts to manage its coastal and flood defence systems in way which allows its residents to continue on as normally as possible, while avoiding tying itself into decades of expensive, socially and environmentally challenging hard engineering solutions. The Council is not alone, a number of interested parties, key stakeholders and research bodies are working hard to better understand local coastal processes, the effects of a changing climate on our coastlines and the type of affordable, sustainable and acceptable measures that could protect life and property in this beautiful part of Sydney.

Council must also do this in an evolving and complicated political environment. How do we evaluate what is worth protecting, and how much money is available to deliver solutions? How long do we have to defend for, or should we even defend at all? The public, and especially the most affected residents, are keen to see solutions, and fast.

But often they do not want hard defences and unsightly concrete walls in front of their properties. With hundreds of millions of dollars of residential, commercial and infrastructure assets at risk, the decision has been made to defend Collaroy-Narrabeen with coastal protection works. But is that the right decision for other locations? Can parts of the coastline be “let go”?

We can renourish and build up our beaches with new sand, but where do we get this

Impacts of coastal erosion on 8 June 2016 at 1126-1144 Pittwater Road, Collaroy-Narrabeen Beach, NSW. Image: Adrian Turnbull

sand from? If we want to dredge it from offshore sand reserves then we need to ensure that this doesn’t in itself effect coastal processes - as well as change the current legislation to make sand extraction permissible in NSW. In the Netherlands, the population and regulators are exceptionally well used to living with water. There is a recognition that hard defences are needed in places where options are limited. However, softer solutions of “working with nature”, and even allowing erosion and flooding to happen is becoming more of the norm. Through combining of precise knowledge of landform, ground levels and at-risk assets, as well as accurate forecasting and early warning systems, we can enable rapid response to existing hazards.

But greater consideration must be given to time-limited consent, retreat and even relocation away from the highest risk locations.

For now, we continue to study and research what our seas are doing and how our beaches, lagoons and entrances are responding. But time is almost up, we need to devise policies and solutions that will help us to continue our way of life, and we need them soon. We mustn’t be frightened of doing things that we have never done before, of letting certain things go so we can protect other more important items. We aren’t going to lose our coastlines, but they are going to move and we need to move with them, or else…

Dr. Martin Budd & Adrian Turnbull Royal HaskoningDHV

Construction of coastal protection works on 4 September 2019 at 1068 Pittwater Road, Collaroy-Narrabeen Beach, NSW. Image: Adrian Turnbull

Business essentials Consulting Matters

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Could less PI insurance be a force for good?

ONE OF THE GREATEST CHALLENGES THAT THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY FACES IN THE COMING DECADES WILL BE THAT OF CLIMATE CHANGE. HOW THE WORLD ADDRESSES THE CHALLENGE WILL DETERMINE THE OUTCOME - GOOD OR BAD.

On April 26 this year, Michael Bleby of the AFR wrote an article “The Hurdles Facing Covid-19 Stimulus Projects” exploring the consequences of the shrinking PI Insurance market in Australia. To quote, “Soaring premiums and limited appetite for risk that have increasingly stopped insurers from offering cover to building certifiers and surveyors are now affecting other professions, such as engineers – and extra work coming from stimulus spending will leave them even more exposed.”

And this message is not new, the impact of the shrinking PI market has been explored in detail by Consult Australia and other industry groups in multiple forums over recent years, impacted especially by the issues emerging from Aluminium Composite Panels.

The message that keeps on repeating itself is that the rules of the game are changing for the construction industry. "Australian construction's professional indemnity insurance crisis never went away. With their pools of capital dedicated to the insurance depleted, insurers slammed by combustible cladding-related claims against building certifiers are increasingly walking away from the unprofitable business line and that is leaving other professions without cover as well", to quote Michael Bleby again.

But what do we mean when we talk about the “rules of the game” and what are consequences of them changing?

It is useful to think of these rules as the things we take for granted when we are problem solving or making decisions on our projects. By holding the underlying rule i.e. that there is plentiful cheap insurance and parties willing to take on risk, our brain quickly make decisions and forms judgments that most of the time are right.

This explanation is based on the concepts of heuristics or System 1 and System 2 thinking explored in Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.

But if the rules of our game are changing, i.e. that risk can be cheaply and easily be transferred (whether to contractual counterparties or third-party insurers), then this automatic decision making becomes less likely to be right.

In both examples given, the rule that risk is cheaply and easily transferred is flawed– in the first case by the straight out financial capacity of that counter-party to absorb risk and in the second case by the capacity or willingness of the insurance market to take on risk. Notably it is the shift in the insurance market which has made us pay attention to these rules - we have all been willing for a long time to ignore the first.

But how can this be good for us you ask?

With the rule safely in place - risk is cheaply quantified, transferred and not tackled head on - our intellectual investment in risk management comes to an early stop.

With the rules gone, we must engage deeply and thoughtfully with the reality that there is risk, that it needs to be managed and that much of that risk rests with project owners and proponents.

It means we will be forced to drive intellectual effort into risk management.

Posing this issue publicly on LinkedIn I received an amazing response from Libby Pracilio, Associate Director at KPA Architects and her response reflected exactly the issue this change means: “…at first the thought of having limited PI coverage was unnerving. However,

the more I think about it, the more I've warmed to the idea and I think it could result in some opportunities for improvement in the broader construction industry. Risk management in design consultancy includes measures such as, but not exhaustively, enhanced design, documentation and coordination, as well as more thorough risk identification and management flowing up and down the contractual chain. It may also include a more collaborative approach to projects, both contractually and culturally, as well as a move towards value-based tendering. Limited PI coverage could motivate higher performance on an individual, office and project level, bringing higher quality project outcomes and requiring innovation, ongoing education and improved efficiency.

Increased levels of service and improved outcomes would likely attract higher fees, which could go some way to addressing the issue of extremely lean professional fees and bids (i.e. the race to the bottom) across the industry. This is predominantly speculative, but the prospect of some positive changes arising out of a tough situation is encouraging!”

I do not believe there will be a return to cheap and readily available PI Insurance (or certainly not any time soon). That means we need to engage with risk at a much deeper level and this can only be a force for good.

Kiri Parr Kiri Parr Pty Ltd

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Consulting Matters Corporate social responsibility

Standing together to build resilience in a post-COVID world

Neil Doherty UNHCR Bangladesh Coxs Bazar.

COVID-19 has made 2020 a year to remember, with the pandemic the worst global health emergency since the Spanish flu in 1918, and it continues to spread rapidly across the globe. The response is greatly challenging for those in countries with poor financial resilience and weak healthcare systems. For many, they are also facing COVID-19 on top of other humanitarian crises, conflicts or disasters.

So how do we ensure those with much less survive the fallout from COVID-19 and increase resilience to recover from future crises?

At RedR Australia, we send skilled people around the world to help communities plan, prepare, rebuild and recover before, during and after a crisis. We are not only facing one of the worst pandemics in 100 years but there are also other threats, such as a

changing climate, that over the next ten years will contribute to an increase in the need for humanitarian assistance.

Prior to COVID-19, RedR Australia’s submission to Australia’s International Development Policy outlined that by 2030, violent conflict and natural hazards would require US$50 billion per year in global donor contributions to manage the needs of approximately 300 million affected people.

Of these, 77 million climate-displaced people would require an additional US$14 billion.

There is no doubt the economic fall-out from COVID-19 will exacerbate these figures.

Being able to rapidly respond to crises and disasters as they unfold is more than just delivering humanitarian aid, it is about pulling together all parts of our society to plan, prepare and find solutions to help all of humanity.

Being able to rapidly respond to crises and disasters as they unfold is more than just delivering humanitarian aid, it is about pulling together all parts of our society to plan, prepare and find solutions to help all of humanity.

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Consulting Matters

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RedR Australia’s Essentials of Humanitarian Practice course provides critical foundational knowledge for working within the modern humanitarian system, and responding to an international crisis that involves a global response.

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Consulting Matters Corporate social responsibility

Kirsten Sayers, CEO RedR Australia.

Preparing for a locally led response RedR Australia is committed to supporting communities to build local capacity and this is why more than half of RedR Australia’s deployments in 2019 supported overseas partners and communities before a crisis, strengthening systems to increase resilience.

Vanuatu was hard-hit by Tropical Cyclone Harold in early April, forcing the country to recover from the cyclone while also trying to protect its people from the impact of the pandemic. The cyclone has affected approximately 120,000 people - that is more than 40 per cent of the total population.

During COVID-19, strict quarantine and border controls have made it challenging to deliver humanitarian assistance to countries, including Vanuatu. With no confirmed cases in the country, the Government is keeping firm measures in place to ensure it remains that way. In addition, the Vanuatu Government made clear they would lead the cyclone recovery efforts.

Strong preparedness and response plans, and cyclone-resilient infrastructure developed during Cyclone Pam with the support of humanitarian actors enables a more localised approach to disaster management for both COVID-19 and Cyclone Harold.

The Pacific is constantly changing and these small island countries have emerged as the global leaders of climate-related disaster response. Preparedness is key, and at RedR Australia, our priority is to assist communities

and provide humanitarian support before a disaster, to put disaster risk reduction frameworks in place.

The role of private sector in humanitarianism While governments play an important role during a humanitarian crisis, it is not only their role to build resilience – it needs to take place at all levels of our society to ensure a stronger response and a faster quicker recovery, so we can prepare for future disasters. The private sector also has a part to play, offering their expertise and innovation to find lasting solutions for communities to thrive.

The genesis of Rotary International goes all the way back to 1905, when a diverse group of Chicago-based professionals wanted to come together, exchange ideas and form meaningful friendships through humanitarian service. By 1911, this network of professionals had grown to a national body with an approved motto - ‘One Profits Most Who Serves Best’.

Rotary, like RedR Australia’s corporate partners and founding bodies, understands that governments and humanitarian organisations alone are not enough. If we are to ensure the resilience of communities and cities when it comes to coping with crises like the bushfire crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, we must come together and use all the expertise available to make a difference.

Through joint problem solving, skilled practitioners from private sector organisations can come together with local communities in a humanitarian crisis to have a real social impact.

Just like RedR Australia deployee, Alister Perkinson, a Systems Engineer employed

by IT Company Tickbox, who was deployed through the Australia Assists program to support the Bougainville Referendum Commission. This deployment helped the commission ensure the integrity of critical information systems for the 2019 independence referendum. Increasingly, skills found in abundance in the private sector are needed to support humanitarian efforts around the world.

Humanitarian support and response can no longer function as ‘business as usual’ in 2020 and disasters, conflicts and crises do not stop because the world is focused on a new threat. RedR Australia is finding new ways to support our neighbours around the world, because now, more than ever, is the time to put humanitarian principles into action.

Kirsten Sayers RedR If you would like to find out more about becoming a humanitarian, whether it is to join the RedR Roster, to build your humanitarian skills through one of our training courses or would like to partner with RedR Australia, visit www.redr.org.au or email communications@redr.org.au.

Project case studies Consulting Matters

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Flood Resilience in action With increasing urbanisation and climate change, our vulnerability to flash flooding has increased and will continue to increase across Australia. As such, forecasting and early warning systems are desperately needed in order to empower communities and to enable us to become more resilient to rapid flood events. Royal HaskoningDHV, together with Nelen&Schuurmans, have developed an innovative Flash Flood Forecasting Service (FLASH速) which does all this and is in operation within Australia today.

The system itself uses real-time rainfall forecast data from the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) which is then inputted into an ultrafast hydro-dynamic flood model called 3Di. Containing a series of complex algorithms, the 3Di model can produce accurate and reliable flood forecast results within fifteen minutes.

Flood forecast results can be viewed via an integrated cloud-based system at street level on interactive flood maps which enable emergency services to quickly identify areas where flash flooding is likely to occur, providing greater lead times for first responders to plan and prepare for flood events. In addition, tailored warnings based on pre-set trigger levels can be sent out to the public that are within flood risk areas. The fast and effective forecasting capabilities of FLASH速 provides enhanced warning levels to the public and greatly improves the overall resilience of the community to major events.

The FLASH速 system has been operational in the City of Parramatta since 2018. The systems abilities and values were recently tested on the 8 / 9 of February 2020 when a one in ten year ARI storm event hit Parramatta. A large East Coast Low event had brought heavy rainfall into Sydney and other areas along the east coast of Australia. Figure 1 shows screenshots from the weather forecast.

The BoM forecast predicted that rainfall would affect areas including the Central Coast, South Coast and Sydney Metropolitan areas, with potentially life-threatening flash flooding. A severe weather warning was in place as torrential rain poured through the Parramatta catchment, with some localised totals exceeding two hundred millimetres.

While this is useful, it does not provide first responders and residents with specific or timely information.

Between February 6 and 8 this year, constant rainfall significantly drenched the Parramatta catchment, with a total of194 mm falling in the seventy two hours up to February 9 before a further 121mm fell over the next 24 hours. Across the catchment, these rainfall totals and intensities were equivalent to a one in ten year event.

During the event, every thirty minutes a new forecast run was simulated. Based on the forecast, six thousand emails, SMS and voice calls were automatically sent by the system to local residents and key stakeholders. The public flood warnings issued during the event comprised of minor flood warnings and a general public information message.

The flash system predicted the timing and peak water levels eleven hours beforehand, resulting in greatly increased warning times for residents and first responders.

The Figure below shows the status of the system on Sunday February 9 at 5:00PM, eleven hours prior to when the peak was reached in the Parramatta River (in the CBD).

The dashed lines show the forecast water level and rainfall. The solid lines show the measured water levels. The flash sytem predicted an increase in water levels of 3 metres in the Parramatta River in less than ten hours.

This resulted in the breach of a flood warning trigger within the system. The actual peak almost exactly matched the predicted peak.

Utilizing the FLASH速 system resulted in accurate water level prediction, enabling emergency services to act hours before the peak of the event, leaving time to plan and prepare. Considered and measured messages were sent to those at risk, ensuring information was provided in a timely fashion, whilst trying to minimise over-reaction and panic. The system worked exceptionally well and continues to be in operation to this very day.

Ben Patterson Royal HaskoningDHV

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